LET’S HAVE A LAUGH! (comedy in business)
I predict that investing in comedy for your PR is something that could be of benefit for your business during 2022.
This year and last, I have worked with a company which creates bespoke sketch comedy videos for PR, event companies and advertising agencies. The company is called, Sketch House. You can find them here – https://sketchhouse.net
Why are they so good? Because they are absolutely brilliant in their ability to create a professional video that will make your clients or your audience/s laugh while delivering a serious or important message.
If you want to ‘disrupt’ people’s thinking and grab their attention, then this is an extremely powerful tool to use.
Like all high quality video, it isn’t cheap, because the company use professional actors, and work closely with you around creating a comic script based on the reason behind your film. This is something worth investing in if you want to put out some marketing that is innovative and attention-grabbing.
Here’s the film I did with them last year – https://youtu.be/J9ANHmfLn8I
– which looked at BS stories when a PR company or a business tries to push a non-story on to the media.
Knowing that I wanted to go down the route of working with a comedy team again, I thought about all the things in my business sector that I dislike.
The myths that people have about working with the media, and the different between marketing and PR. I have a whole load of pet hates, and examples of cringy behaviour and stories that lend themselves perfectly to this genre. I have plenty of ideas to keep me going for year, and I’m sure you do too.
All I had to do was make a list and then talk to the team.
My latest sketch is based on the BBC TV series Dragon’s Den, though a Press Dragon’s Den. It’s all about the BS that business owners tell themselves about the media, and how they think it’s easy to be in the news and that you don’t have to have anything particularly exciting to share.
It’s about the arrogance of business owners who think just by who they are, they deserve to be in the national press, that the media should be falling over themselves to work with them and their business when even a business owner doesn’t know what a story is…
The actor playing the ‘business owner’ is perfect, as are actors playing the team of ‘press dragons’, who each match their ‘national press outlets’ hilariously in the way they talk and look. The business owner has no understanding of PR or marketing, or it seems, his own business. He has a completely inflated view of his own importance, and abilities! The outcome is hilarious.
I’ve really enjoyed working with the team from Sketch House and look forward to in the future.
So, how will I use this latest comedy sketch?
- Something funny for social media when we need a laugh.
- Something which will resonate for many in the creative sector.
- A conversation starter because I give talks on an almost weekly basis.
- A funny way to start a keynote talk – because I’m increasingly being paid to talk about me and what I do, even during lockdown.
Next week I’ll be sharing about the fun I had on BBC Wiltshire’s radio feature, ‘Beat the Boss’.